As a conventional-management method when an electronic document is printed into a paper document, barcode data for identifying a document is added to each document in advance, and management information for operation management is stored in a server in correspondence with the barcode data. In this case, every time operation is done for a given document, the document can be specified on the basis of barcode data, and management information of the document can be changed or added in accordance with the operation of the document (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-198687).
In some cases, a serial number is encoded, and utilized as a trace unique to a user who has accessed the document when another user has a copy of the document (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-280227).
In order to manage a larger amount of data, there are proposed a larger number of methods of embedding an IC tag in a paper document sheet, and wirelessly reading and writing data (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2004-265247, 2004-181861, 2004-098307, 2004-222085, and 2004-280227). For example, only a paper sheet in which an IC tag is embedded at a predetermined location is limited and printed as a printing medium. A unique ID (e.g., a serial number) and printable level information are added to the IC tag, and can be used for the trace of the printed paper document. Also, the printer system can check the level in printing and reject printing in accordance with the level (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-280227).
However, in the prior arts, generation information when the document lifecycle changes (a lifecycle of an electronic document  a paper document  an electronic document  a paper document  . . . , more specifically, a lifecycle of edit (create)  print  copy  scan  store  search  edit  print  . . . ) is not continuously accumulated or managed in respective documents themselves, e.g., from an electronic document to a paper document and from a paper document to an electronic document. The generation information contains
<1> How many times was a document scanned, printed, or copied until the current document is obtained, or how many copies/printouts of the document were made?
<2> By whom and when a target document was accessed?
For this reason, the following problems occur.
(1) As the document lifecycle changes, a user who created the original becomes unknown.
(2) As the document lifecycle changes, it becomes difficult to grasp who accessed (edited, printed, copied, scanned, or searched for) the document (i.e., it becomes difficult to manage the spread of information of the contents).
(3) If a document in which the location of an original electronic document is written as a digital watermark or barcode on a page is copied electrophotographically, the original electronic document can be accessed even from the copy, and can be printed without any restriction and any degradation of the image quality. It is difficult to restrict access to the original electronic document on the basis of the “generation” of the document.
As described above, according to the prior arts, no document lifecycle can be effectively managed, and neither processing nor access can be managed on the basis of the document lifecycle.